The Bajoran's have the tears of the prophets, which are obviously real and obviously have the abilities of giving you visions or making you travel through time. Their "religion" is very much grounded in reality. They KNOW their gods exists, instead of simply believing it.

Glowing space rocks that give you hallucinogenic experiences which happen to fall in line with your cultural expectations? Clearly evidence of non-linear wormhole-dwelling aliens.

CorporalCaptain wrote:

I think that's a fine analogy, actually. The writers seemed aware of it, too. For example, in Accession the "orb shadow" sounds very much like an hallucinogen flashback.

However, the references in DS9 to faith generally sound very much like they are intended to be taken as metaphors for Christian faith.

Well, to be fair it's not as though people haven't used mind-altering substances to have a Christian faith-experience before.

Xhiandra wrote:

Simple: because someone influential on the production side of things is quite religious. So, we get a very preachy, manichean Star Trek show that completely contradicts the humanist vision depicted in TOS&TNG.

That's pretty unfair since most of DS9 wasn't manichean at all. And the humanist vision was never said to apply outside the Federation - it's just that DS9 spent a lot more time delving into non-Federation cultures and didn't simply dismiss Bajoran religion as foolish childlike savagery.

Xhiandra wrote:

same individual wrote:

The authors of the New Testament even used YOUR argument: "Don't believe us? Ask around. There are living people who saw all this happen." That they are dead now doesn't make their statements any less credible.

Given that those authors are writing a century or more after the alleged facts, they couldn't have very well done so.

Sorry, but you're just wrong there. General consensus is that several of Paul's letters were written between CE 51 and 58, and even Revelation before CE 100. At the very least, the Marcion canon (c. 130-140) included a large number of the Pauline epistles as authoritative.